Cognitive Biases

The “you get what you pay for” placebo effect isn’t just a quirky psychology experiment, it’s a robust insight into how expectations shape reality.

Elevate the Shopping Experience: Are you ready to discover the key to unlocking brand performance in-store? Add a D.O.S.E of neuroscience...

Have you ever wondered why you might finish a tall glass of cola more quickly than a short, round one?

Using zero-risk bias can work in en employer's favour when it comes to sustainable shopping.

Understanding the impact of advertising and media messaging can impact our purchasing habits.

Making your product stand out against the crowd will make shoppers more likely to choose it.

Using emotional temptation can persuade shoppers to opt for the sustainable option.

How can employers guide shoppers towards the more sustainable option?

Shopping more sustainably is more about long-term consequences, but how can we convince shoppers that this is the best option to choose?

Making sure customers are aware that the sustainable choice is the best one can work in your favour.

The impact of the negativity bias on sustainable shopping habits.

The importance of understanding this cognitive bias cannot be underestimated.

How to make sure loss aversion doesn't negatively affect your business.

Making sure your customers are not overwhelmed with choice can work in your, and the planet's favour.

How the sunk-cost fallacy is incorporated into sustainable shopping.

The ways you can use the illusory effect in your own sustainability initiatives.

How can employers use the IKEA effect to encourage sustainability?

Understanding and recognising hyperbolic discounting can help encourage consumers to opt for a more sustainable choice.

Groupthink can have a significant impact on the way consumers make sustainable decisions.

Ways that companies can utilise the framing effect when trying to switch consumers' perspectives on their products.

When we tend to fixate on the first piece of information we receive, this can impact our purchasing habits.

Our tendency to place a higher value on products that we already own can effect the retail space.

When we are choosing between two products simultaneously, our views are different.

We are typically more likely to spend money when it is in smaller denominations. This can be used to encourage sustainable choices.

Using the default effect correctly can ensure customers opt for the most sustainable option when presented with a range of choices.

Ensuring that your product stands out against other options so that shoppers choose the most sustainable option is possible when employing the Decoy Effect.

How congruence bias provides opportunities in sustainable shopping.

Ways you can use confirmation bias to encourage sustainable shopping practices.

The ways to utilise choice-supportive bias to encourage customers to implement sustainable choice into their purchasing decisions.

How we can use the Ben Franklin effect when encouraging shoppers to carry out sustainable actions.

When we mistakenly judge a situation and fail to take into account all surrounding relevant information, we are using the base rate fallacy.

Our tendency to follow the crowd has an impact on our sustainable shopping experience.

Specific criteria that we remember can affect our decision-making when shopping sustainably.

Automatically assuming that details are correct when shopping affects our ability to shop sustainably.

When we don't consider the wider picture while we make a purchase we are implementing attribute substitution.

When we don't try to see all sides of a story we are displaying attentional bias and this comes into play when we are shopping sustainably.

Our tendency to rely on the first piece of information that is fed to us can impact how we shop sustainably.

When applying cognitive biases to promote sustainable shopping we can see the impact of the ambiguity effect on our sustainable shopping practices.

Zero-risk Bias is a tendency to prefer the complete elimination of a risk even when alternative options produce a greater reduction in risk overall.

Salience Bias is the cognitive bias that predisposes shoppers to focus on items that are more prominent or emotionally striking.

Ever snapped up a last-minute offer by the tills? A small chocolate bar? A packet of chewing gum? That's impulse buying, aka Restraint Bias.

Present Bias is the tendency to rather settle for a smaller present reward than to wait for a larger future reward, in a trade-off situation.

Post purchase rationalisation, or choice-supportive cognitive bias, is the tendency to retroactively ascribe positive attributes to an option one has selected.

The negativity bias is the notion that things of a more negative nature have a greater effect on one's psychological state than neutral or positive things.

The mere-exposure effect is a psychological phenomenon in which people tend to develop a preference for things merely because they are familiar with them.

Loss aversion bias refers to our human tendency to prefer avoiding losses to acquiring equivalent gains.

The Less is Better Effect is a preference reversal that occurs when the lesser or smaller alternative is preferred when evaluated separately, but not together.

The Sunk Cost Fallacy is a human behaviour pattern in which people continue a behaviour as a result of previously invested resources (time, money or effort).

The Illusory Truth Effect is the tendency to believe false information to be correct after repeated exposure.

The IKEA effect is a cognitive bias in which consumers place a disproportionately high value on products that they partially created.

Hyperbolic discounting is a cognitive bias where people choose smaller, immediate rewards rather than larger, later rewards.

Groupthink is a psychological phenomenon that occurs within a group of people, resulting in an irrational or dysfunctional decision-making outcome.

The framing effect is a cognitive bias where people make decisions based on whether the options are presented with positive or negative connotations.

The Focusing Effect is the tendency for the brain to rely too much on the first piece of information it received in relation to decisions made later on.

The endowment effect is an emotional bias that says that once we own something, or have a sense of ownership, we irrationally overvalue it.

Distinction Bias is the tendency to view two options as more different when evaluating them simultaneously than when evaluating them separately.

A cognitive bias relating to currency, suggesting people are less likely to spend larger currency denominations than their same value in smaller denominations.

Default refers to the option that shoppers end up with if they do not make an active choice - something given to them on a plate, sometimes quite literally!

The decoy effect is the phenomenon whereby shoppers will have a specific change in preference between two options when presented with a third option.

Courtesy Response, a downfall of humankind - we're often so afraid of offending our listener that we hide away from speaking the truth.

Congruence Bias refers to the fact that, as a species, we prefer to only test against our initial hypothesis, neglecting to explore alternative outcomes.

Confirmation bias is the tendency for the brain to value new information more if it supports existing ideas and beliefs.

Choice-supportive bias is the tendency to retroactively ascribe positive attributes to an option one has selected and/or to demote the forgone options.

There's a psychological phenomenon commonly known as the "Ben Franklin Effect" that explains why people like you more when they do you a favour.

A phenomenon known as base rate fallacy illustrates how people can sometimes jump to inappropriate conclusions, with significant consequences.

The Bandwagon Effect is the tendency for the brain to conclude that something must be desirable because other people desire it.

The Availability Heuristic is a mental shortcut that relies on immediate examples that come to a shopper’s mind when evaluating a purchase decision.

We tend to favour suggestions from automated decision-making systems because they're easier, not because they're right!

Attribute substitution occurs when we must make a decision that is mentally complex - instead our brain substitutes a more easily calculated attribute.

Attentional bias is the inability to see all sides of a story. When you fail to consider the things you don't see, you are displaying Attentional Bias.

An anchoring effect is the tendency for the brain to rely too much on the first piece of information it received in relation to decisions made later on.

The ambiguity effect is a cognitive bias where decision making is biased by a lack of information (ambiguity).